"Wokeist" - When people talk about progressivism without acquaintance

[Akka]

I guess then, nor does it make the prejudice of the people using it actually true?
There's obviously a dissonance between how the word is used and the accuracy of its application, which isn't uncommon in semantics (I mean, it is semantics). The way I see it is that Angst was explaining that dissonance and how ideology factors into it.

No, he's not explaining the dissonance, he's inserting it in. He starts from the principle there is a dissonance, he describes it as it being ignorance, and as such consider anyone using such word is ignorant.

You can end any discussion whenever you want, but that reads like a dismissal.

No, that's not dismissal, that's an answer to dismissal :

Or, in another way :

From Angst :
The moment someone says SJW unironically, it's time to stop listening to that person.

With "woke" instead of "SJW".

THAT is a dismissal. He notices that simply naming will lead to being ignored, and as such there is little point trying to keep a conversation going as it's being shut down from the get-go.
(at least that's what I interpret)

 

[warpus]

Isn't "woke" the political branch of "hipster"? Both are terms no one uses to refer to themselves.

Yeah, both seem to be insults. Hipster is an insult targeted at people who say they are against the mainstream but end up dressing exactly the same like every other hipster and end up getting exactly the same facial hair, haircuts, they adopt each others mannerisms and speech nuances, and are basically the Borg who eat overpriced toast.

On the other hand "Woke" seems to be an over-encompassing insult targeted at whatever happens to be the object of derision in the moment. If you can figure out any way at all to tie this thing that's inconvenienced you to the left or to left-leaning politicians or anything left at all, then it's possible for somebody somewhere to find it woke. Depending on who you talk to, being woke could mean fighting for women's rights or even just saying that you think everybody should be treated equally. I wouldn't be surprised if eating the wrong kind of toast is considered woke by some as well. Who the hell knows, these people are making all of this up on a minute by minute basis

 

[TheMeInTeam]

On the other hand "Woke" seems to be an over-encompassing insult targeted at whatever happens to be the object of derision in the moment. If you can figure out any way at all to tie this thing that's inconvenienced you to the left or to left-leaning politicians or anything left at all, then it's possible for somebody somewhere to find it woke.

you can call a dog a chair, but it probably won't cooperate if you try to equate the two.

while "woke" is not perfectly defined, imo it does constrain anticipation more than is being given credit. for example:

• it seems a certain class of people take offense at being called woke and/or react to criticisms levied for being woke. this suggests at least some overlap of understanding between people using it as pejorative and the targets of the that pejorative. not perfect overlap, but significant.
  • aka if i say all fhwarags are idiots, nobody cares because it's a "word" i just made up. but if i say all of certain other categories are idiots, i will cause offense and be infracted. this means that to at least some degree, people can identify the categorization and distinguish it from random words.
• while you could probably dig up a few people to say otherwise somewhere, i would strongly guess that the vast majority of people using woke as pejorative are not referring to things like hillary clinton's conduct/misconduct, obamacare, or environmentalist arguments/legislation.
• same for covid mismanagement/violation of constitution/bad covid policy leading to current economic problems

instead, it is usually things like cancel culture/crt/social issues being pushed strongly and penalizing dissenting opinions that seems to fit the category of woke most frequently. those things have found their home in the democratic platform, but are a small subset (especially if you consider them against % of country as a whole).

 

[Angst]

No, he went at length explaining his a priori about people using the word. It doesn't make this prejudice actually true.

Read your previous post, and I think you're missing something here, which I think I brought up, but may not have been clear about.

It's not an a priori dismissal, and I don't want to make it out to be such. It's rather following how the rhetorical environment is in practice. So it's not "you can't ever be understanding my position because you call me something I'm not", but it's "in this media climate and climate of popular politics, this word usage shows you aren't actually acquainted with my position or how the people you're arguing against actually think". And of course sometimes there are people who talk about "wokeism" who understand the positions of the people they umbrella under it, but it's both very rare and often then done callously. It's not objectively always the case that you don't understand a position when mislabeling it, it's not a priori, that is, without experience. I caution listening to people using that terminology about the left specifically because this is how it's used. Look at TMIT's assumption in this very thread's response of his. It must be because I'm taking offense at the usage, which allows extrapolation of my political position to the simulacrum of the vaguely offended left winger, then to declare all of the left a religion where the mislabel is to misappropriate. This is the case of the usage in practice, more often than not. Reinforced a label I don't subscribe to, sure, but then expanded on my views beyond what I have with another subser of the political wing.

My suggestion to stop listening is pretty basic. It's practicality. You also shouldn't play the lottery with the purpose of winning it. It happens rarely, but in practice, you're just gonna lose time and resources. Now, it doesn't mean you can't ever play, or engage with that person. The lottery comparison is more, chances are the person has no clue as to what you believe exactly. And that's because of the particular environment of the word usage.

 

[Akka]

@Angst
I may have missed something, but what you describe looks to me to be just an unpacked explanation of why you have this a priori, with an added caveat that it's an overall but not "always" experience. I don't really see a fundamental difference other than that.

One thing though, the "woke" usage I've mostly seen is not about "the left", but a specific subset of the left mainly related to identity politics.

 

[Angst]

saying this creates an interesting incongruence. when "the right" or other critics of "woke" call it out, why do people who "don't identify themselves as woke" take offense then, or believe it's referring to them? if i make a joke at expense of engineers or lawyers, it is weird to act like an engineer or lawyer in response while "not identifying" as an engineer or lawyer.

"We" don't "act" like the engineer or lawyer though. It's very easy to identify when people are talking about you. Someone can point and me and say you, you're Asian, and I'd know they'd talk about me, even though I'm clearly not what they call me. And we also see the errors I note here as you misattribute my position to offense by (your) association.

best i can tell, the closest way to approximate this is that people know what fits the category of "woke" broadly/imprefectly, and that it includes them, but they don't agree with the conclusions made about it. but if this is the case, they do in fact identify themselves as woke, otherwise any rejection of arguments would be more abstract and a lot less personal.

As I noted, you can understand what people are trying to say, even when they're wrong. You can also understand that people are talking about you when they put labels on you. People can say "Angst, the Engineer" and I can understand they're talking about me without identifying or, bluntly, being an engineer. You're doing it in this very post by virtue of calling on my user and attributing me to things I don't believe.

maybe a good point of comparison is calling someone a "trumpist". there are people who support trump almost no matter what, and people who picked him over the alternative grudgingly, because his policy stances were at least somewhat less bad than his competitior. these are not the same people. they will not behave the same way or select the same candidate(s) in other environments. yet they are commonly lumped together for convenience or just general criticism of picking trump for any reason. similar idea with "woke".

The left does it too, yes, although I have to say I haven't seen Trumpist being used in media unless it's about the zealous ones, Trump demonstrations, etc.

doesn't matter any more than other people knowing how i speak in my circles matters. what matters is how people fitting the category act/attempt to influence others.

Lenin isn't woke within any meaningful grouping of the word, neither is Clinton. Who could be called woke. Beyoncé made a feminist and egalitarian-flavored album, I guess. Is she reasonable to be argued against by quoting the ills of Lenin? Do they believe the same thing?

that's one of the biggest problems general, including here. "define our terms". woke claims to operate against societal injustice. sometimes it does, and often it instead advocates or actively causes injustice. generally, the same people area not working towards justice and injustice, rather different people who fit the "pursuant to social justice" category wind up doing one or the other most of the time.

all of that gets lumped into "woke". this means it can be rightfully criticized or defended, depending where you look.

And here you spring to the SJ label. How is that helpful to your understanding of what I believe? Do you even know what my political position is? Since there's a lot of assumptions here.

including its dogma/beliefs without evidence and mix of useful + actively harmful elements, i consider the comparison to religion particularly apt. for example, christianity was used to commit some heinous crimes against humanity, and also used as a tool to advocate (unsuccessfully, unfortunately) for the rights of people in the western hemisphere in colonial times and against slavery. obviously, the same people were not doing both things. but they fit under "christians" all the same.

my observation is that presently, woke is more harmful than most religions while sharing many of its properties.

Ok so basically, your position is that "wokeism" sees injustices and calls to action against these injustices, so this is the tenet you talk about when discussing this supposed religion. If so, I'd ask you to take a step back and look at literally any political activity - not activism - throughout human history. If you want the blanket to be this vague, you also have a problem with the centre and right and all of humanity.

 

[Angst]

@Angst
I may have missed something, but what you describe looks to me to be just an unpacked explanation of why you have this a priori, with an added caveat that it's an overall but not "always" experience. I don't really see a fundamental difference other than that.

One thing though, the "woke" usage I've mostly seen is not about "the left", but a specific subset of the left mainly related to identity politics.

I think I understand what you're getting at. But maybe it's just because I've dealt with philosophy, and a priori cannot have caveats from experience or be based on experience. It's literally propositions about knowledge based on things independent of/before experience. And my whole deal here is as to how wokeness is used. A priori is literally contrary to my whole shpiel, that words as used shows no acquaintance with the subject matter as practiced. Maybe there's another terminology for it, but I'm unsure. I'd love to help you out here btw, I don't mind disagreeing and it's good having clear distinctions of what one is talking about (again, the whole point of the thread), but I'm just unsure as to what to call my position's roots. It's just categorically not a priori. The dismissal is an appeal to practicality as to how it's used by the users in the current environment.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Someone can point and me and say you, you're Asian, and I'd know they'd talk about me, even though I'm clearly not what they call me.

that's not quite right wrt the point i'm making. the context is more like you see someone talking about asians on the news generally, and still thinking they mean you.

remember, that's the context of other thread too. i made a comment about it generally, to agree that it wasn't related there, and to say it's bad. the poster to which i was responding almost certainly didn't get the impression that i thought that poster was woke, either. yet it elicited a response all the same.

i am also not assuming you are woke, and thus my argument about offense isn't a mis-attribution, but rather a general observation that when stuff is criticized as woke, those who react to it are predictably consistent.

As I noted, you can understand what people are trying to say, even when they're wrong. You can also understand that people are talking about you when they put labels on you. People can say "Angst, the Engineer"

no. again, see above. i did not pin the woke label on anybody on this forum. i made a comment about it, generally.

if someone else reads this and believes it is related to them, then they do in fact identify themselves as woke in some capacity. that is not me attributing it.

You're doing it in this very post by virtue of calling on my user and attributing me to things I don't believe.

i'm not though

The left does it too, yes

not the point i was making.

the purpose of that paragraph was to give example in different context, how one label can be used to describe two very different people. that's true for both woke and trumpist.

Lenin isn't woke within any meaningful grouping of the word, neither is Clinton. Who could be called woke. Beyoncé made a feminist and egalitarian-flavored album, I guess. Is she reasonable to be argued against by quoting the ills of Lenin? Do they believe the same thing?

i'm not sure why this followed what it was quoting.

Do you even know what my political position is?

no, and i did not say otherwise. though this has happened a lot for one post. why do you react as if what i wrote is specifically relevant to you? this thread is not "angst's position on wokeism". it's about wokeism in general and posts about it in general. or at least, that's what you put in op.

as for the reason i wrote "social justice", that seems to be a significant component of being woke.

Ok so basically, your position is that "wokeism" sees injustices and calls to action against these injustices

i will make my position more clear:

• woke sees injustices where they exist
• woke also frequently sees injustices where they do not exist
• woke acts often imply/are injustices directly
  
• woke not only does not consistently use evidence to discern the difference, it will reject and even punish dissenting opinions that present evidence
• woke is responsible for cancel culture in last 10 years, and that is cancer
• in the name of progress, woke has made the country significantly more racist and divided than in its absence, despite good intentions

you noticed earlier that i compare woke to religion. you could swap it with religious right, shift things by a couple decades, and make similar statements. therefore:

you also have a problem with the centre and right and all of humanity.

you're not too far off with this conclusion.

the one thing that's worse about woke than other religions is that it does not appear to have the same binding community value as historic religions had for their in groups. probably because it rewards/incentivizes farming for victim points and has a nasty tendency for people who step even a little out of line to turn on each other.

 

[Angst]

@TheMeInTeam

I'm on my phone and quote navigation is hell so I'm gonna do this quoteless, sorry. I have three points;

First, I feel you're right in that I misatrributed the point to being about myself. So yes, there's a point here. I think it has to do with the atrribution of religion with no tenets, but as a behavioral pattern (which you doubled down on), and the resulting outline as to when woke stops and left and rest begins or whatever is really dim. I am unclear as to the delineation of "they" in your first post in this thread. It builds a structure in society that is freely attributable for rhetorical purposes. Now you don't use them specifically at me here, but I'm kind of in a position where I'm unsure where it takes us if I just go "sure" and leave it at that. My intention with this thread is to drop the terminology, at least handle it differently in private discussions, as I don't see it as useful, even for the right (unless for callous reasons). To sum up what you probably want is to prevent wokeness, where you outline the reasons being its toxic behavior. But this is really, really strange when I don't have a clear delineation of where this supposed religion stops. Like, the rhetorical function is "this isn't about you, it's about wokeness" but without a real "this is the concrete wokeness that concretely should be dealt with this way". So, honestly asking, where do you draw the border of woke, then? Can you roughly outline the religion? Not in the practices (you made that last post), but like, concrete institutions and such.

Second, cancel culture for whatever that is is basically just previously surpressed demographics and political segments that have found a way towards social control. It's cancel culture as a new thing specifically because of its swarm behavior on social media, but it as a structure (basically social censorship on moral grounds) is not new and was infact historically functionally monopolized by the right in the West, save stuff like Revolutionary France. The reason it's noticeable is twofold: the technological grounds allowing a new form of it (which is btw much less dire than older censorship mind you, which was directly on the body so to say); and the fact we see it from groups that previously had no power to push for censorship. To me, it's kind of a behavioral footnote other than the response to it, which usually passes over historical censorship (that are experienced as natural by virtue of having concretely happened). So people are surprised and appalled that it's happening, while it's not imo historically special in any way other than post-internet causing it to spread to unseen groups.

Third, I agree with the last point. To put it bluntly, the left has a real tendency to cannibalize itself while the right is more organized. I believe this has to do with the right having less base tenets to share, giving more overlap, while the left has more disjunct tenets, relatively speaking. The alt right (not the right) is a good example of this. They are fundamentally opposed to each other's endgame societies as practiced policy, but even with such differences, they manage to organize, since the core tenet is white people. All while the far left (not the left) has very rigid ways of what the world should look like after the end of capitalism, valuing it more than the shared space of despising capitalism in itself.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am unclear as to the delineation of "they" in your first post in this thread.

the line is mostly at attempts to force social issues/harm others, particularly when not supported by evidence. at least, that's the line i criticize in the context of woke.

But this is really, really strange when I don't have a clear delineation of where this supposed religion stops.

looking at it as a religion, it similarly shares in tolerable, good, and bad doctrines/pressures. so it's less useful where the church of woke stops as a whole, and more useful to delineate where its harmful aspects are.

without a real "this is the concrete wokeness that concretely should be dealt with this way".

if i had a better methodology to get rid of the bad aspects of wokeness that would not imply even worse measures/policy i would have given it. but for now, i'm stuck with saying bad things about it.

Second, cancel culture for whatever that is is basically just previously surpressed demographics and political segments that have found a way towards social control.

no, that's not what cancel culture is at all. i'd even estimate that vast majority of cancel culture efforts wind up using minority demographics as a flag to wave around, but are heavily if not mostly comprised of people who would not fit the category of "suppressed demographics". though per above, there is also debate over what actually constitutes a suppressed demographic, and how that's defined.

but it as a structure (basically social censorship on moral grounds) is not new and was infact historically functionally monopolized by the right in the West

correct (see my reference to "cancel culture classic" earlier). i consider that similarly toxic, too. when the right was doing it, it was noticeable and noticed. i have not forgotten its impact on me. yet right now, it predominantly comes from woke...sometimes even with horrible ironies like segregation being somehow good.

make no mistake, i have little doubt the right would go right back to doing it instead, given the chance. i have own experience + known history beyond my experience to predict that. shouldn't be respected when they do it either.

and the fact we see it from groups that previously had no power to push for censorship.

we do not need more censorship.

They are fundamentally opposed to each other's endgame societies as practiced policy, but even with such differences, they manage to organize, since the core tenet is white people.

i'm not too familiar with these circles, but i suspect the core tenet is something else from what i've seen. they will use race to rile people up, but seems to be more ideological (there are also way too many non-white people who fit this description for it to make sense). though i can't pin down their preferred policy. it's a mix of authoritarianism and freedom, and by hearing "alt right" i can make predictions as to which things go where according to them. but i can't formulate a coherent core tenet which predicts those preferences in advance. and perhaps they don't actually have one, other than hating on the left more universally.

 

[El_Machinae]

Second, cancel culture for whatever that is is basically just previously surpressed demographics and political segments that have found a way towards social control.

I love this sentence and I think you're an amazing person for having written it.

To put it bluntly, the left has a real tendency to cannibalize itself while the right is more organized.

I don't think this is really the issue and I suspect that it's not true from multiple perspectives. Given rightwing fear of 'the woke mob', they're afraid of that organization and not dismissive of it, assuming that we'll out-cannibalise them.

My first suspicion is their successes are due more to the nature of power and its accumulation. Unfortunately, 'power' is sometimes tradable for 'human well-being', in a zero-sum fashion. This means that if the people you're trying to empower end up consuming that power, then there's less of a positive feedback cycle on the power accumulation. Everyone who 3x games knows about turtleing, out-building, and the sweeping out to crush. And, at lower levels of gameplay, this wins because you're just ... better at it ... than the AI.

The 2nd is that I think that the rightwing has a broader motivation when it comes to pro-active actions that support the movement. If we want to be uncharitable, we could say they're afraid of more things and thus more willing to compromise when it comes to providing a broad defense. Or, we could say they care about more things, and thus are willing to give more. And then, this compounds on the feedback cycles of power.

 

[Lexicus]

• woke sees injustices where they exist

• woke also frequently sees injustices where they do not exist

• woke acts often imply/are injustices directly

• woke not only does not consistently use evidence to discern the difference, it will reject and even punish dissenting opinions that present evidence

• woke is responsible for cancel culture in last 10 years, and that is cancer

• in the name of progress, woke has made the country significantly more racist and divided than in its absence, despite good intentions

Is woke in the room with you right now?

 

[danjuno]

Anybody old-timer on here who's familiar with my posting history knows I used to be very big into the whole Anti-SJW stuff. I got swept into that crap as an angsty teen by New Atheist YTers like Thunderf00t and the Amazing Atheist, even been Gamergate-adjacent at one point.

I pulled back from the brink, eventually. I actually remember arguing with @Lexicus on a thread about feminism circa 2017/2018? as probably being the turning point where it clicked for me that I was being fed strawmen about Intersectionality and Social Justice and not what they actually were. To this day, I still cringe whenever people drop terms like PC/SJW/Woke.

 

[Berzerker]

we do not need more censorship.

but wokeism censors bad people

 

[Synobun]

Why do "free thinkers" always have the weirdest interpretations of free speech and censorship? No longer being provided a platform by private enterprises and individuals because you're a bell-end isn't censorship. Some might even say it's the free market at work, operating as intended.

 

[Synobun]

Anybody old-timer on here who's familiar with my posting history knows I used to be very big into the whole Anti-SJW stuff. I got swept into that crap as an angsty teen by New Atheist YTers like Thunderf00t and the Amazing Atheist, even been Gamergate-adjacent at one point.

I pulled back from the brink, eventually. I actually remember arguing with @Lexicus on a thread about feminism circa 2017/2018? as probably being the turning point where it clicked for me that I was being fed strawmen about Intersectionality and Social Justice and not what they actually were. To this day, I still cringe whenever people drop terms like PC/SJW/Woke.

There's a thread on here where I was firmly in the camp of "punching Nazis is bad." Embarrassing. I've evolved since.

 

[Sofista]

I believe it's all a matter of spinning words. If I can quote Schopenhauer (written about 1830; slightly re-arranged to match my own paperback copy at least in format):

Stratagem 12
If the conversation turns upon some general conception which has no particular name, but requires some figurative or metaphorical designation, you must begin by choosing a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition. For instance, the names used to denote the two political parties in Spain, serviles and liberales, are obviously chosen by the latter.
The name Protestants is chosen by themselves, and also the name Evangelicals; but the Catholics call them heretics.
Similarly, in regard to the names of things which admit of a more exact and definite meaning: for example, if your opponent proposes an alteration, you can call it an innovation, as this is an invidious word. If you yourself make the proposal, it will be the converse. In the first case, you can call the antagonistic principle “the existing order,” in the second, “antiquated prejudice.” What an impartial man with no further purpose to serve would call “public worship” or a “system of religion,” is described by an adherent as “piety,” “godliness”: and by an opponent as “bigotry,” “superstition.” This is, at bottom, a subtle petitio principii. What is sought to be proved is, first of all, inserted in the definition, whence it is then taken by mere analysis. What one man calls “placing in safe custody,” another calls “throwing into prison.” A speaker often betrays his purpose beforehand by the names which he gives to things. One man talks of “the clergy”; another, of “the priests.” Of all the tricks of controversy, this is the most frequent, and it is used instinctively: “religious zeal” ≅ “fanaticism”; “faux pas,” or “piece of gallantry” ≅ “adultery”; “equivocal” ≅ a “bawdy” story; “embarrassment” ≅ “bankruptcy”; “through influence and connection” ≅ "by bribery and nepotism”; “sincere gratitude” ≅ “good pay.”

 

[Angst]

Anybody old-timer on here who's familiar with my posting history knows I used to be very big into the whole Anti-SJW stuff. I got swept into that crap as an angsty teen by New Atheist YTers like Thunderf00t and the Amazing Atheist, even been Gamergate-adjacent at one point.

I pulled back from the brink, eventually. I actually remember arguing with @Lexicus on a thread about feminism circa 2017/2018? as probably being the turning point where it clicked for me that I was being fed strawmen about Intersectionality and Social Justice and not what they actually were. To this day, I still cringe whenever people drop terms like PC/SJW/Woke.

I was actually firmly against feminism as a young lad. My path into it was different than yours (conservative upbringing & long personal story with a toxic relationship), but I indeed found out it was much different than I thought when I started talking to people and getting the articles in my hands. I don't remember if I used the term social justice much, but it clicked at some point that the feminists were trying to help me, not what my earlier girlfriend was presenting it as.

 

[Angst]

I believe it's all a matter of spinning words. If I can quote Schopenhauer (written about 1830; slightly re-arranged to match my own paperback copy at least in format):

Just wanted to say, your username with this post is brilliant. <3

 

[NovaKart]

I’m not going to defend using woke because it is very imprecise and it’s not a hill I’m going to die on. I think it has its use but if you’re going to criticize something on the left criticize it for what it is, don’t call it woke. I tend to think of woke as something absurdly left wing, like people using the word folx. Or pointing out the use of the clapping emoji could be cultural appropriation, which I have seen on Twitter.

About cancel culture - what I disagree with and maybe I’m getting this wrong - it seems like Angst and maybe some other people here are arguing that because it’s not new and is now from “previously supressed demographics” that it’s a totally insignificant issue.

I would argue that it does seem to be targeting a lot of people on the left - so I agree the left cannibalizing itself - and it’s often coming from the most privileged people in “previously supressed demographics” and people who are acting on their behalf.

I think it is a significant issue, if exaggerated, because it suppresses artistic expression - some of these issues involve canceled book deals and art exhibits for one thing. It also leads to an atmosphere where people can’t speak freely, challenge orthodoxy and I really think the left should keep to its legacy of defending free speech.

And if it’s not as bad as government censorship, so what? Are people saying it is?